


False Positives

by apotropaicsymbol



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Carlton Drake POV, Gen, Human Experimentation, Introspection, Religious Themes, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 23:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20714471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotropaicsymbol/pseuds/apotropaicsymbol
Summary: LIFE had been, as far as Carlton could tell, the only organization on the planet to realize what the approach of the asteroid meant. What its implications were.His critics don't understand that everything he does-- all of this-- is for them.





	False Positives

PART 1: ON THE WALLS OF THE CAVE

_Something's happening. Something big._

Nobody gets as far as Carlton has in Silicon Valley without a certain amount of intuition. Who to cultivate, what to say, which place to be in at which time. Carlton's instincts, his secret senses, are excellent. Complacency is dangerous; he does not flatter himself in this. No; a ruthless self-critique is necessary to keep from deluding himself. Not a thought goes by that he does not catch, examine, release. Find the truth, sift through the chaff.

The asteroid's initial readings had been unusual. As part of LIFE's preparation for the next stage of human history, they had developed technology intended to identify different species from a great distance, even through vacuum. It had worked very well on distinguishing humans from other Earth organisms. He had been pleased to learn that it could even deliver accurate readings for the products of the genetic engineering division. But the true test of the bio-signature tech was if it could identify something completely unknown.

And it had.

But that was the second anomaly. The first was that the asteroid's trajectory had had bizarre irregularities, ones that the mainstream astronomical community had chalked up to earlier impacts or gravitational distortions. Carlton had seen the diagram and thought, _course corrections_. The speed and direction were not controlled enough to be a spaceship, and the temperature extremes made it nearly unthinkable that it could be anyone's living environment. But.

If someone, or a group of someones, were hypothetically able to _steer_, at least partially, a two-mile-long engineless chunk of rock through space, it would look a great deal like that asteroid. They had run simulation after simulation, trying to pin down just how much control would be necessary, and in which direction, in order to get the kind of results that they were seeing. In the end, the scenario where the asteroid's “pilots” had no more than 35% control over velocity and were trying to aim it at Deneb matched the real thing closely. Almost perfectly.

The simulation team emailed Carlton the results on a rainy gray evening. He'd had Jameson on the phone three minutes later.

He knew it. He knew: _this is something big_. And even now, even though he had grown to expect that nobody else would notice, a part of him still felt giddy, amazed that he was the only one.

When he sees them, they are beautiful, more so than his wildest dreams. Dark like night skies, bright like amber. Blue like lapis on the sarcophagi of kings.

How lucky are those chosen to introduce mankind.

* * *

PART 2: PRECIPICE OF HEAVEN

Today is Carlton's birthday. No doubt someone is busily updating his Wikipedia page, even as he takes the stairs down from his office, down to the lab.

He is thirty-five now, the same age that his father was when Carlton was born. The exact same age: they had the same birthday. Lately, when Carlton looks in the mirror, there is that half-second of nonrecognition, that false positive. _Dad?_

No. It's just me.

He used to find it striking, ironic, how different they became. He does not find it striking any more.

Carlton's father had been deeply in love with what he called the “Abrahamic heritage of humanity”, had been concerned that Carlton become as familiar with Judaism and Christianity as Islam. In centuries past Drake _p__è__re_ might have been a mystic, a poet. A bearded man in a miniature painting, gazing with love at some unseen source of light. But he lived in the real world: he may have spent his nights reflecting on Sufi poetry, but his days were spent with eyes glued to stock market displays.

He never entertained the idea that God had abandoned man, a final, irrevocable breach. He would have laughed – _my son, are you a nihilist?_ He would have been wrong. There is no turning back now: not for a frail species in an inhospitable cosmos, its little lifeboat on fire. No miracles will save it; it can only save itself.

Carlton Drake intends to make that salvation happen.

He is busy day and night, but he makes a point to come down, to speak to each volunteer individually. It's basic respect: if this is worth their time, it's certainly worth his. And there is another reason, something else.

To put his hand upon the glass; to look at their bright, hopeful, tired eyes--

It makes all of this worth it.

Like Muhammad on the mountain, like Isa flooded with the spirit, like Idris by the side of God. The luminous purity at his core, the breathless silence echoing at the back of his mind. It was almost a surprise to find no glow on his skin. He cannot help but want it more.

The first time, he had whispered to himself: “So this is what it feels like.”

“What, sir?”

“Sorry. It's nothing.”

There are those who think ill of him. Some of those are competitors, or those who are loyal to his competitors; some of those resent success on principle. That does not bother him; he always knew that greatness achieves enemies. The only time it stings is when people want to cast him in the part of the heartless scientist, the selfish tycoon. They don't understand.

Victor Frankl showed him that man cannot live without meaning. This city teemed with the tired and poor, the wretched of the earth. Carlton's peers saw fellow humans in need, and they ignored them. They _turned their backs_. But he, he would reach out his hand, pull up each and every volunteer. From the hunger and cold, from the unbearable meaninglessness of their lives. He compensates them well, of course, but what is that next to the _purpose_ he gives? The sense of dignity?

_Gilgamesh_ showed him that only one's reputation lives forever. And not too far from now, even that limitation will be surpassed. But while it's still here...

The man on the other side of the glass is taller than Carlton, paler, younger, skinnier. His skin has the dirty sheen of someone whose diet has too much salt and not enough everything else. His teeth are yellow with tobacco stains. This volunteer, like so many before him, wears an expression that flickers between birdlike panic and a dazed, animal dumbness.

None of the staff have bothered to calm him. Well, this is something to bring up at Friday's meeting.

Carlton gets as close as he can to the glass, looks straight into those scared, trusting eyes.

“There's no need to be frightened, Isaac. There's no need. Isaac.”

_It doesn't matter. Do you understand, Isaac? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that your parents threw you out after you failed college. It doesn't matter that you've spent the last year sleeping on the street. You are worth so much more than they could ever see. They don't see it, but I do._

_No matter how you lived, you'll die a hero._

Behind Isaac, the symbiote moves like the Red Sea.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading.


End file.
